I went to Tractor Supply today and bought two things:
$94.99 was the total. I handed her a $100 bill and got a $5 bill and a penny back.
The freakin’ fly spray was almost $34. Insanity. I’d change to a cheaper brand but this works and it’s one that he’s not sensitive to.
I just did a quick Google search and several places have the Davis Bell Boots for 19.99 including Schneider’s and Big Dee Tack.
Coming here to say the same thing! I go thru the Davis boots like crazy too, and I buy thru Schneiders. I like the hot neon colors, easier to find if lost.
I’ll probably buy elsewhere. I appreciate the tip. Just noting the big price jump on SP which is easy to track because of the way they archive past orders. I also noticed SP was slightly more expensive before but was willing to pay a buck or two more for the item due to the free barn saver shipping and the easy if just randomly tossing in items knowing they’d come quickly. Now that there’s a sly fee added into every order and more other stores offer free shipping, there’s no much reason to go with SP.
There has been big price jumps on a bunch of stuff. Flax seed, Timothy pellets are up 4.00, fly spray, and and basic stuff.
Flax seed was 45.00 for 50 lbs when I brought my horses home, last bag cost 85.00. Timothy pellets are up 4.00 a bag, fly spray was 19.99 a bottle for endure now it’s close to 30.00.
Shavings has gone up 30% as well.
I’ve fixed Davis bell boots so they last months longer after the Velcro was ripped off with this hack: Crafty: Getting more life out of wrecked bell boots
I was doing a food trial on my sensitive stomach boy and that Purina food for the big bag had a 10$ price jump at PetSmart from January to March. Ridiculous! Needless to say I don’t feed that anymore as didn’t make a difference for him.
Yes! Prices are going up. Butter has over doubled in the last 2 years. Flour has almost doubled since 2020, vehicle parts have tripled in a couple of specific instances.
I keep most of my horse related receipts, there seems to be a big jump between 2021 and 2022 and then again between 2022 and 2023.
Beet Pulp:
2014 $11.97
2016 13.29
2018 14.10
2019 14.48
2020 16.39
2021 15.27
2022 22.80
Horse ration
2016 14.98
2018 16.57
2021 17.25
2022 21.18
2022 22.25
2022 23.25
2023 27.15
Nuggets (which I use as treats)
2014 15.05
2018. 19.76
2023 36.55
I was feeding a cheaper brand (4Health) for several years, and he was doing well (I thought) on their sensitive skin formula. But June 2022 he wound up with a $7k emergency vet bill due to fluid in his chest cavity. The causes were basically inconclusive, and they kept saying cancer. I did a ton of research and since he had basically stopped eating anyway, I tried various foods. We even did Ollie (I was basically desperate to get him to eat anything). I had bought a small bag of Orijen Amazing Grains Six Fish recipe at some point and one day I tried that again and he gobbled it up. Fed him that for quite some time, but talk about pricey! So I tried the Pro Plan and he likes it a lot and seems to be doing well. And we’ve been over a year with no more fluid in the chest…happy, healthy dog. I have no idea if the food was the culprit, but I read enough to make me think it played a major role.
I’m blessed with special needs animals. The horse is just as bad. Feed him the wrong thing and it’s the end of the world.
Yikes! The Davis ones are the ones my farrier recommends.
I just checked my SP order history. Earlier THIS YEAR, I only paid $20.85 a pair for them. There might have been some kind of 10% sale but even assuming that, it’s an enormous price jump. And I need to switch mine out to the last pair I have in stock after the farrier comes this week, as the velcro on the ugly teal pair is dying. Not looking forward to restock expense!
Last week, I ducked in to the local feed store to grab more fly spray, which we’ve been going through at a remarkable rate this year. They had Bronco for $6! I bought two bottles because while it’s not the best, none of them seem to work for more than 3 minutes anyway, and if that was a pricing mistake, I was getting some while the getting was good. I haven’t seen fly spray under $12 in years.
I used to be a Davis buyer but have switched to Centaur. They have limited colors on Amazon $14.95. Also Shires brand even cheaper. Haven’t tried shires, but my Centaurs hold up pretty well - maybe 5 months. Its always the velcro that seems to bite the dust for me…
I’m currently using the neoprene Shires bell boots and some ribbed, Velcro rubber bell boots on top. Yes, double boots, it might be overkill but I prefer her shoes on.
That is another one!!
I buy Gordons Horse and Pony Spray ( oil based) . It used to be $39.99 for a gallon. 2 years later I just paid $ 54.99…
The Italian pull on bell boots have gone up almost $20. When I went to the non Italian double thick bottom ones, I went from paying $9.99 to now paying around $25.
Gloves have also gone up, I used to pay $19.99 for a decent pair of Heritage gloves and now I’m paying $30 plus dollars.
The price of fly spray has become crazy.
I’ll be interested to monitor these changes over the next little while. My two local supply stores (a smaller regional chain and a TSC) were $22 and $24 respectively today. $36 seems absurd - I wouldn’t put it past SmartPak to just be gouging the crud out of people simply because they can.
This is GENIUS. So much time I’ve wasted sewing the damn velcro back on because the stitching is the only part that seems to wear out!
Or, Smartpak recently got a new supply of them in at a higher price so they had to increase what they charged and the other places have not encountered that yet.
… which is why I said I’ll be interested to see how prices fluctuate over the next several months.
I have been putting off buying a new pair of crochet back gloves because I am morally and ethically opposed to paying $30 when they were like $19 two years ago LOL.
Also the cost of Ultrashield, good god.
I had a stash of fly spray and grooming products from gift baskets from silent auctions - they ran out and I am in sticker shock. And what happened to thrush buster?
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